Lexicology 14-09-23 конспект
.pdfPrefixation
Prefixation is the formation of words by means of adding a prefix to the stem. In English it is characteristic for forming verbs. Prefixes are more independent than suffixes. Prefixes can be classified according to the nature of words in which they are used : prefixes used in notional words and prefixes used in functional words. Prefixes used in notional words are proper prefixes which are bound morphemes, e.g. un- (unhappy). Prefixes used in functional words are semi-bound morphemes because they are met in the language as words, e.g. over- (overhead) ( cf over the table ).
The main function of prefixes in English is to change the lexical meaning of the same part of speech.
Prefixes can be classified according to different principles :
1. Semantic classification:
a)prefixes of negative meaning, such as : in- (invaluable), non- (nonformals), un- (unfree) etc,
b)prefixes denoting repetition or reversal actions, such as: de- (decolonize), re- (revegetation), dis- (disconnect),
c)prefixes denoting time, space, degree relations, such as : inter- (interplanetary) , hyper- (hypertension), ex- (ex-student), pre- (pre-election), over- (overdrugging) etc.
2. Origin of prefixes:
a)native (Germanic), such as: un-, over-, underetc.
b)Romanic, such as: in-, de-, ex-, reetc.
c)Greek, such as: sym-, hyperetc.
When we analyze such words as: adverb, accompany where we can find the root of the word (verb, company) we may treat ad-, acas prefixes though they were never used as prefixes to form new words in English and were borrowed from Romanic languages together with words.
Composition
Composition is the way of wordbuilding when a word is formed by joining two or more stems to form one word. The structural unity of a compound word depends on:
a)the unity of stress
b)solid spelling
c)semantic unity
d)unity of morphological and syntactical functioning.
These are characteristic features of compound words in all languages. For English compounds some of these factors are not very reliable. As a rule, English compounds have one uniting stress (usually on the first component), e.g. hard-cover, best-seller. We can also have a double stress in an English compound, with the main stress on the first component and with a secondary stress on the second component, e.g. blood-vessel. The third pattern of stresses is two level stresses, e.g. snow-white, skyblue.
The semantic unity of a compound word is often very strong. In such cases we have idiomatic compounds where the meaning of the whole is not a sum of meanings of its components, e.g. to ghostwrite, skinhead, brain-drain etc. In nonidiomatic compounds semantic unity is not strong, e. g., airbus, to bloodtransfuse, astrodynamics etc.
English compounds have the unity of morphological and syntactical functioning. They are used in a sentence as one part of it and only one component changes grammatically, e.g. These girls are chatterboxes. «Chatter-boxes» is a predicative in the sentence and only the second component changes grammatically.
There are two characteristic features of English compounds:
a)Both components in an English compound are free stems, that is they can be used as words with a distinctive meaning of their own. The sound pattern will be the same except for the stresses, e.g. «a green-house» and «a green house».
b)English compounds have a two-stem pattern, with the exception of compound words which have form-word stems in their structure, e.g. middle-of-the-road, off-the-record, up-and-doing etc. The twostem pattern distinguishes English compounds from German ones.
Ways of forming compound words.
a)reduplication, e.g. too-too, and also by means of reduplication combined with sound interchange , e.g. rope-ripe,
b)conversion from word-groups, e.g. to micky-mouse, can-do, makeup etc,
c)back formation from compound nouns or word-groups, e.g. to bloodtransfuse, to fingerprint etc ,
d)analogy, e.g. lie-in (on the analogy with sit-in) and also phone-in, brawn-drain (on the analogy with brain-drain) etc.
Classifications of English compounds
1.According to the parts of speech compounds are subdivided into: a) nouns, such as : baby-moon, globe-trotter,
b) adjectives, such as : free-for-all, power-happy,
c) verbs, such as : to honey-moon, to baby-sit, to henpeck, d) adverbs, such as: downdeep, headfirst,
e) prepositions, such as: into, within, f) numerals, such as : fifty-five.
2.According to the way components are joined together compounds are divided into:
a) neutral, which are formed by joining together two stems without any joining morpheme, e.g. ballpoint, to windowshop,
b)morphological where components are joined by a linking element : vowels «o» or «i» or the consonant «s», e.g. {«astrospace», «handicraft», «sportsman»),
c)syntactical where the components are joined by means of form-word stems, e.g. here-and-now, free- for-all., do-or-die .
3. According to their structure compounds are subdivided into:
a)compound words proper which consist of two stems, e.g. to job-hunt, train-sick, go-go, tip-top ,
b)derivational compounds, where besides the stems we have affixes, e.g. ear-minded, hydro-skimmer,
c)compound words consisting of three or more stems, e.g. cornflower-blue, eggshell-thin, singersongwriter,
d)compound-shortened words, e.g. boatel, tourmobile, motocross.
4. According to the relations between the components compound words are subdivided into:
a) subordinative compounds where one of the components is the semantic and the structural centre and the second component is subordinate; these subordinative relations can be different:
-with comparative relations, e.g. honey-sweet, eggshell-thin,
-with limiting relations, e.g. breast-high, knee-deep,
-with emphatic relations, e.g. dog-cheap,
-with objective relations, e.g. gold-rich,
-with cause relations, e.g. love-sick,
-with space relations, e.g. top-heavy,
-with time relations, e.g. spring-fresh,
-with subjective relations, e.g. foot-sore etc
b) coordinative compounds where both components are semantically independent. Here belong such compounds when one person (object) has two functions, e.g. secretary-stenographer, woman-doctor, Oxbridge etc. Such compounds are called additive. This group includes also compounds formed by means of reduplication, e.g. fifty-fifty, no-no, and also compounds formed with the help of rhythmic stems (reduplication combined with sound interchange) e.g. criss-cross, walkie-talkie.
5. According to the order of the components, compounds are divided into compounds with direct order, e.g. kill-joy, and compounds with indirect order, e.g. nuclear-free, rope-ripe.
Conversion
Conversion is a characteristic feature of the English word-building system. It is also called affixless derivation or zero-suffixation. The term «conversion» first appeared in the book by Henry Sweet «New English Grammar» in 1891. Conversion is treated differently by different scientists. Professor A.I. Smirntitsky treats conversion as a morphological way of forming words when one part of speech is formed from another part of speech by changing its paradigm, e.g. to form the verb «to dial» from the
noun «dial» we change the paradigm of the noun (a dial,dials) for the paradigm of a regular verb (I dial, he dials, dialed, dialing).
Conversion is the main way of forming verbs in Modern English. Verbs can be formed from nouns of different semantic groups and have different meanings because of that, e.g.
a)verbs have instrumental meaning if they are formed from nouns denoting parts of a human body e.g. to eye, to finger, to elbow, to shoulder etc. They have instrumental meaning if they are formed from nouns denoting tools, machines, instruments, weapons, e.g. to hammer, to machine-gun, to rifle, to nail,
b)verbs can denote an action characteristic of the living being denoted by the noun from which they have been converted, e.g. to crowd, to wolf, to ape,
c)verbs can denote acquisition, addition or deprivation if they are formed from nouns denoting an object, e.g. to fish, to dust, to peel, to paper,
d)verbs can denote an action performed at the place denoted by the noun from which they have been converted, e.g. to park, to garage, to bottle, to corner, to pocket,
e)verbs can denote an action performed at the time denoted by the noun from which they have been converted e.g. to winter, to week-end .
Verbs can be also converted from adjectives, in such cases they denote the change of the state, e.g. to tame (to become or make tame), to clean, to slim etc.
Nouns can also be formed by means of conversion from verbs, e.g. move-a move, to sleep-sleep, to work-work.
Abbreviation
In the process of communication words and word-groups can be shortened. The causes of shortening can be linguistic and extra-linguistic. By extra-linguistic causes changes in the life of people are meant. In Modern English many new abbreviations, acronyms , initials, blends are formed because the tempo of life is increasing and it becomes necessary to give more and more information in the shortest possible time.
There are also linguistic causes of abbreviating words and word-groups, such as the demand of rhythm, which is satisfied in English by monosyllabic words. When borrowings from other languages are assimilated in English they are shortened. Here we have modification of form on the basis of analogy, e.g. the Latin borrowing «fanaticus» is shortened to «fan» on the analogy with native words: man, pan, tan etc.
There are two main types of shortenings: graphical and lexical.
Graphical abbreviations
Graphical abbreviations are the result of shortening of words and word-groups only in written speech while orally the corresponding full forms are used. They are used for the economy of space.
The oldest group of graphical abbreviations in English is of Latin origin. In these abbreviations in the spelling Latin words are shortened, while orally the corresponding English equivalents are pronounced in the full form, e.g. for example (Latin exampli gratia), a.m. - in the morning (ante meridiem), No -
number (numero), p.a. - a year (per annum), d - penny (dinarius), lb - pound (libra), i. e. - that is (id est) etc.
Some graphical abbreviations of Latin origin have different English equivalents in different contexts, e.g. p.m. can be pronounced «in the afternoon» (post meridiem) and «after death» (post mortem).
There are also graphical abbreviations of native origin, where in the spelling we have abbreviations of words and word-groups of the corresponding English equivalents in the full form. We have several semantic groups of them:
a)days of the week, e.g. Mon - Monday, Tue - Tuesday etc
b)names of months, e.g. Apr - April, Aug - August etc.
c)names of counties in UK, e.g. Yorks - Yorkshire, Berks -Berkshire etc
d)names of states in USA, e.g. Ala - Alabama, Alas - Alaska etc.
e)names of address, e.g. Mr., Mrs., Ms., Dr. etc.
f)military ranks, e.g. capt. -captain, col. - colonel, sgt - sergeant etc.
g)scientific degrees, e.g. B.A. - Bachelor of Arts, D.M. - Doctor of Medicine .
h)units of time, length, weight, e.g. f. / ft -foot/feet, sec. - second, in. -inch, mg. - milligram etc.
The reading of some graphical abbreviations depends on the context, e.g. «m» can be read as: male, married, masculine, metre, mile, million, minute, «l.p.» can be read as long-playing, low pressure.
Initial abbreviations
Initialisms are the bordering case between graphical and lexical abbreviations. When they appear in the language, as a rule, to denote some new offices they are closer to graphical abbreviations because orally full forms are used, e.g. J.V. - joint venture.
When they are used for some duration of time they acquire the shortened form of pronouncing and become closer to lexical abbreviations, e.g. BBC is as a rule pronounced in the shortened form.
In some cases the translation of initialisms is next to impossible without using special dictionaries. Initialisms are denoted in different ways. Very often they are expressed in the way they are pronounced in the language of their origin, e.g. ANZUS (Australia, New Zealand, United States) is given in Russian as АНЗУС, SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) was for a long time used in Russian as СОЛТ, now a translation variant is used (ОСВ -Договор об ограничении стратегических вооружений). This type of initialisms borrowed into other languages is preferable, e.g. UFO - НЛО, CП - JV etc.
There are three types of initialisms in English:
a)initialisms with alphabetical reading, such as UK, BUP, CND etc
b)initialisms which are read as if they are words, e.g. UNESCO, UNO, NATO etc.
c)initialisms which coincide with English words in their sound form, such initialisms are called acronyms, e.g. CLASS (Computor-based Laboratory for Automated School System).
Abbreviations of words
Abbreviation of words consists in clipping a part of a word. As a result we get a new lexical unit where either the lexical meaning or the style is different form the full form of the word. In such cases as
»fantasy» and «fancy», «fence» and «defence» we have different lexical meanings. In such cases as «laboratory» and «lab», we have different styles.
Abbreviation does not change the part-of-speech meaning, as we have it in the case of conversion or affixation, it produces words belonging to the same part of speech as the primary word, e.g. prof is a noun and professor is also a noun. Mostly nouns undergo abbreviation, but we can also meet abbreviation of verbs, such as to rev from to revolve, to tab from to tabulate etc.
But mostly abbreviated forms of verbs are formed by means of conversion from abbreviated nouns, e.g. to taxi, to vac etc. Adjectives can be abbreviated but they are mostly used in school slang and are combined with suffixation, e.g. comfy, dilly, mizzy etc. As a rule pronouns, numerals, interjections. conjunctions are not abbreviated. The exceptions are: fif (fifteen), teen-ager, in one’s teens (apheresis from numerals from 13 to 19).
Lexical abbreviations
Lexical abbreviations are classified according to the part of the word which is clipped. Mostly the end of the word is clipped, because the beginning of the word in most cases is the root and expresses the lexical meaning of the word. This type of abbreviation is called apocope. Here we can mention a group of words ending in «o», such as disco (dicotheque), expo (exposition), intro (introduction) and many others.
On the analogy with these words there developed in Modern English a number of words where «o» is added as a kind of a suffix to the shortened form of the word, e.g. combo (combination) - небольшой эстрадный ансамбль, Afro (African) -прическа под африканца etc.
In other cases the beginning of the word is clipped. In such cases we have apheresis , e.g. chute (parachute), varsity (university), copter (helicopter) , thuse (enthuse) etc. Sometimes the middle of the word is clipped, e.g. mart (market), fanzine (fan magazine) maths (mathematics). Such abbreviations are called syncope. Sometimes we have a combination of apocope with apheresis,when the beginning and the end of the word are clipped, e.g. tec (detective), van (avanguard) etc.
Sometimes shortening influences the spelling of the word, e.g. «c» can be substituted by «k» before «e» to preserve pronunciation, e.g. mike (microphone), Coke (coca-cola) etc. The same rule is observed in the following cases: fax( facsimile), teck (technical college), trank (tranquilizer) etc. The final consonants in the shortened forms are substituded by letters characteristic of native English words.